Earlier in the month, Nokia warned customers of issues with their batteries, issues severe enough to ultimately lead to a recall. Around 46 million batteries were affected, all manufactured by Matsushita. Since the burden of these recalls often falls on the manufacturer, Matsushita is facing having to front the cost of replacing them.
Just how much will the cost be? As we saw with Sony's recalls, batteries aren't cheap to replace - and Matsushita is looking at upwards of $172 Million in costs, as they admitted today. That $172 million is coming from batteries manufactured over the course of less a year.
This recall is yet another strike against lithium-ion batteries, which have seen numerous recalls from various manufacturers in the past two years, beginning with the huge Sony scandal. Some are calling for a redesign of manufacturing processes and designs used for li-ion cells, claiming the technology as it exists is flawed. If indeed that is the case, projects like fuel cells might have a better chance of succeeding.